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Most Texas counties use the eSlate, a primitive machine that works like a Fisher-Price toy typewriter. You have to turn a wheel, line up your selections, push the right button and then carefully not push another button or nudge the wheel until you cast your vote.

Fifteen years ago, it was an improvement over old lever-operated machines.

Now, in an age of touchscreen phones and selections by click of a wireless mouse, it feels like driving a stick-shift ’98 Buick.

Voters in Arlington, Colleyville and Southlake blamed eSlates for “switching” their votes from Republican Donald J. Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton on Monday, making national news along with a voter in the Panhandle city of Canyon.

It happens a lot when you’re casting a straight-ticket party vote.

Randall County election administrator Shannon Lackey

“It happens a lot when you’re casting a straight-ticket party vote,” said Randall County election administrator Shannon Lackey, more candid than Tarrant County officials as she returned calls to discuss the Canyon voter’s complaint.

“People push the button again, or the wheel slips, and they get somebody they didn’t want,” she said: “Thank goodness there’s a ‘summary’ page to check before you cast the ballot. That’s why it’s there.”

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“It only records what you put in,” she said: “It’s like a DVD player — if you accidentally put in Ghostbusters, it can’t play Terms of Endearment.”

Officials from the vendor, Austin-based Hart InterCivic, did not return a call Tuesday.

Democrats have other complaints this election. The Tarrant County party issued and then withdrew a news release accusing Republican poll watchers of “voter intimidation,” mainly over the signing of affidavits for voters who could not get a photo ID.

“What we’re hearing is that voters are being asked questions that have been thrown out as improper by the [federal] court, or told they need their registration card when they don’t,” said Jane Hamilton, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey.

“Those are just the ones who call. Nine times out of 10, somebody who’s turned away just won’t go back.”

Neither side is very happy so far. And it isn’t even Election Day yet.

About Bud Kennedy

Bud Kennedy is a homegrown Fort Worth guy who started out covering high school football here when he was 16. He went away to the Fort Worth Press and newspapers in Austin and Dallas, then came home in 1981.

Since 1987, he's written more than 1,000 weekly dining columns and more than 3,000 news and politics columns. If you don't like what he says about politics, read him on barbecue.